| 1. | Then Job answered: |
| 2. | "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. |
| 3. | Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. |
| 4. | As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient? |
| 5. | Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. |
| 6. | When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh. |
| 7. | Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? |
| 8. | Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. |
| 9. | Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. |
| 10. | Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf. |
| 11. | They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. |
| 12. | They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. |
| 13. | They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. |
| 14. | They say to God, `Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of thy ways. |
| 15. | What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?' |
| 16. | Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me. |
| 17. | "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger? |
| 18. | That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? |
| 19. | You say, `God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, that they may know it. |
| 20. | Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. |
| 21. | For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off? |
| 22. | Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high? |
| 23. | One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure, |
| 24. | his body full of fat and the marrow of his bones moist. |
| 25. | Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good. |
| 26. | They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. |
| 27. | "Behold, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. |
| 28. | For you say, `Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked dwelt?' |
| 29. | Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony |
| 30. | that the wicked man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath? |
| 31. | Who declares his way to his face, and who requites him for what he has done? |
| 32. | When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb. |
| 33. | The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow after him, and those who go before him are innumerable. |
| 34. | How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood." |
